


Lonely Souls

by Enterprisingly



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alien Technology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Awesome Crew, Ghosts, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:24:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enterprisingly/pseuds/Enterprisingly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk, a bored Starfleet Captain on mandatory shore leave between assignments, moves into an apartment which just so happens occupied by a very logical, very bored ghost. What begins as uneasy cohabitation evolves into a friendship that Jim doesn't want to leave behind when he returns to space. Determined not to lose his friend, he searches for a way to bring Spock with him, never suspecting that what he uncovers will change the universe forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Or: The one where Jim and ghost!Spock are roommates and this causes a lot of trouble for the universe at large.
> 
> All things pretty much happen the same in this universe as they do in canon, the only differences being that the Vulcans are hyper isolationist and they never made contact with Earth. While Nero never visited this universe, George Kirk still died on the Kelvin, when it was pulled into a singularity, and he stayed behind to keep all the systems running long enough for everyone to escape. And Jim Kirk served as Pike's first officer until Pike retired and Jim became captain of the Enterprise through normal means, instead of crazy shenanigans.
> 
> This is unbeta'd. If you catch any errors, please let me know!

So this looks bad.

Actually, Jim’s pretty sure that this straight up, flat out _is_ bad. There really isn’t any wiggle room in Starfleet regulations for theft of starships under normal circumstances, much less absurd ones like these. But there goes Jim Kirk- the golden boy of Starfleet- stealing his own ship, to go make unauthorized first contact with a (possibly mythical) race of aliens. Because his ghost-friend needs help.

And maybe Jim should just start this whole story from the beginning, because when he puts it like that, not only does it sound bad, but he also sounds crazy.

Which he isn’t. Mostly.

* * *

It all starts with the regulation dictating that every member of a starship crew must take at least a year of mandatory shore leave after a deep space mission that lasts longer than three years.

The Enterprise, the fleet’s new flagship and Jim’s baby, has just returned to Earth from _five_ years in space and after what feels like another five years worth of debriefing, Jim and his crew are booted out of the Starfleet Headquarters, and told to go be normal citizens for the next twelve months. 

This doesn’t really sit well with the majority of them, partially because there is nothing normal about the Enterprise crew, and partially because after five years of alien worlds and warp-speed starship battles, Earth is really fucking boring.

Over the last few weeks Jim has heard some vague chatter about visiting families, or sleeping for more than eight hours at a time, but remarkably, none of the crewmen seem to be as happy as the Starfleet Brass is under the impression that they should be.

Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s one man who’s practically glowing over the idea of extended, mandatory shore leave.

Jim’s Chief Medical Officer, Leonard McCoy, is the least likely space-traveler that he’s ever met and he takes every opportunity to remind Jim of the myriad of dangers and potential deadly threats that the galaxy at large holds for them all, every time they leave a spacedock. For McCoy, a year of shore leave is probably close to paradise.

He adjusts the strap of his duffle bag across his shoulders and seriously considers throttling the man, who looks like all his birthdays and Christmases have come at once, as they walk away from Starfleet HQ. 

“Relax, Jim,” McCoy says, “If you keep grinding your teeth like that, you’re going to crack one.”

Jim, who is certainly _not_ grinding his teeth- okay, maybe he is a little bit- levels a glare at his best friend. “Screw you, Bones.”

McCoy just laughs and shoves his hands into his back pockets. “Would you quit acting like you’re about to be executed by a firing squad, and lighten up a bit? God knows you’ve been through hell and back over the last five years–”

Jim starts to interrupt, but McCoy keeps talking, completely ignoring his protests.

“- and the fact that you had fun doesn’t change that, and probably proves that you should be in psychiatric care, not on a starship. That mission was no Sunday picnic and you need this break, like it or not. 

Jim can’t really argue with him there. Well, he could, but he would be wrong and Jim doesn’t like being wrong. Instead he settles for a scowl and a heavy sigh as he hails a nearby taxi, that’s idling in the drop-off zone across the street.

The vehicle makes a U-turn of dubious legality and pulls to a stop in front of them, doors opening automatically. They clamber inside, punch the adress into the screen mounted on the back of the driver's seat and then settle in. Jim laughs a little when McCoy gets fussy with him because his seatbelt isn’t fastened.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” McCoy snaps and reaches over to buckle Jim in himself.

“Aww, Bones! I didn’t realize you cared.” Jim says with a grin.

“You shut your mouth. I didn’t spend the last five years putting you back together every time you broke yourself just so that you could go and die from something stupid at the first opportunity, now that we’re planetside again.”

The words are harsh, but McCoy’s tone is one of affectionate exasperation, so Jim just keeps smiling and stares out the window, letting McCoy continue to ramble unimpeded.

The cab zips along and less than ten minutes later, they arrive at the familiar structure of the personnel-housing complex. Jim hops out as soon as the doors open and laughs as McCoy grumbles under his breath and swipes his credit chit for the driver.

“Next time we’re at a bar, you’re buying.” McCoy says, and he punches Jim in the shoulder for good measure, because for once he doesn’t have a hypospray on hand. 

Off Duty Personnel Housing, or Hotel Starfleet, as it is known to those who live there, is made up of two interconnected high-rise buildings that share a common recreation and dining facility, located in the center of the complex. Each apartment comes furnished with the bare essentials for modern living, and the whole thing reminds Jim strongly of the Academy dorms. They're both cramped, sterile, and impersonal. The only difference is that Hotel Starfleet's units are single occupancy. Living there is not mandatory, but it is free so most people choose to make use of it if they don’t have somewhere else they’d rather be.

Jim supposes that he could have chosen to go to his family’s farmhouse in Iowa, but… there are a lot of bad memories in that place- ghosts that he isn’t quite ready to face yet. And beyond that, there really isn’t anything waiting for him that is any more enticing than what San Francisco has to offer.

A Starfleet issue, adult dorm room might not be his first choice, but at least it promises to be free of emotional baggage.

“McCoy to Jim. You in there?” McCoy says as he waves a hand in front of Jim’s face and Jim snaps out of his thoughts, startled to realize that they have crossed most of the open, green space that sets the buildings back from the sidewalk, and they have almost reached the entrance.

“Oh, uh… yeah. Sorry, I just… I guess I’m pretty beat.” Jim’s shoulder’s sag a little.

“It was bound to catch up with you eventually.” McCoy says. They’ve stopped walking, paused outside the sliding glass doors, through which Jim can see the nearly vacant lobby of their new building. It looks… pleasant and inoffensive; even the security desk just inside the door looks less uptight and official than the rest of Star Fleet's facilities.

_Hotel Starfleet, indeed._

“Look,” McCoy says quietly, “I know this is not what you want to be doing right now, but you’ve been going full burn since day one at the academy and some down time can’t hurt. It’s just a year and it’s not like the Admiralty is forbidding you from filling your time with anything you want to do- wihtin reason." McCoy adds hastily because this is Jim he's talking to and Jim likes to twist McCoy's words around and interprest them as permission to do things that he really shouldn't be doing. "They just don’t want their best and brightest burning themselves out.” 

“I get it, it’s just-”

McCoy shakes his head and looks him dead in the eye. “No, Jim, you might know that intellectually, but I don’t think you really get it. You’ve always blazed your way through one activity or another, for as long as I’ve known you, mastering challenge after challenge but never consistently doing one thing for long enough to get really and truly burnt out on it.” 

This isn’t really the place for this conversation, but McCoy is _right_ , god damn him, and Jim’s already feeling a little off balance after the end of the mission. He can’t even muster up a sarcastic quip to derail McCoy’s train of thought, so for once, he’s stuck listening with no easy out.

“I’m not saying you have to enjoy this. But I am saying that you don’t need to enjoy it for it to be good for you. Our ship needs a lot of work before she’s ready for another five-year voyage and you need to do something that doesn’t involve being responsible for the lives for over 400 people, for a little while. Sign up to teach a class at the Academy, learn to surf, hell, take up painting; whatever you’ve gotta do to pass the time,” McCoy spreads his hands wide and shrugs, “but for god’s sake, man! This is good for you and it’s not permanent. Stop moping and take advantage of it while you can.”

Silence falls between them for a minute, interrupted only by the ambient noise of their surroundings and the occasional _whoosh_ of the doors opening and closing, then Jim nods once and claps McCoy on the back before staring off for the doors again. He makes it sound so easy and Jim really wants to listen to his advice. He wants it to just be that simple, but he’s James Tiberius Kirk and there is nothing simple about him or his life. All the same, the longer he mopes, the less tolerant McCoy will get and the more likely he is to wind up actually getting himself sent to counseling or something equally unappealing. So he forces himself to relax a little and coaxes a rueful grin onto his face.

“Point taken. Now let’s go figure out where the hell we’re living.” He says. McCoy lets out a somewhat satisfied grumble and follows in his wake.

The woman at the security desk, whose name plate reads ‘Lt. Cable’, has iron gray hair and a handsome face, and even though she looks to be in her mid-forties, Jim smiles and winks as he thanks her, after she gives them the cards with their room numbers and temporary key-codes, before directing them to the turbolift bank on the left side of the room. She doesn’t react overtly, but her cheeks do go a little pink and Jim can practically feel McCoy rolling his eyes.

“You’re a real piece of work.” McCoy tells him as they wait for the lift, and Jim laughs. A lighter mood settles over them now and Jim is grateful for it.

“You know you love me.”

“You’re lucky I don’t have a hypo on me right now or I’d show you how I really feel.” He grumbles.

He waggles his eyebrows outrageously at McCoy. “Sounds kinky.”

“You wish.”

The lift opens and the two men step inside. Rank has its privileges and both of them have been assigned officers quarters- McCoy on the sixteenth floor and Jim on the floor above. As neither one of them has ever lived here before, they’re not quite sure what to expect beyond perhaps a little more wiggle room. Thankfully they will be living close enough that even if their quarters turn out to be truly abysmal, they can at least commiserate together with little fuss.

McCoy gets off at his floor with a promise to comm him later, then the lift door shuts and Jim continues on alone for another few seconds, until it reopens, revealing a hallway, nearly identical to the one below it, but with fewer doors on each of the walls.

Jim’s room is number 1701. He had scoffed a little when he was at that on the card Lt. Cable had handed him. Someone in the HR department obviously thought they were being quite clever, sticking him in a room with the same number as the Enterprise.

Now, looking at the number on the door itself, Jim doesn't find it quite so amusing. Any semblance of a lighter mood crumbles under the weight of the longing that sweeps over him. He misses his ship, he misses having his crew at arms length, he misses the stars and the exploration, and yes, even the danger. Whatever lies behind the wooden door to his new apartment cannot possibly measure up to what he is being kept away from for a year.

For all that McCoy is right about Jim probably needing this break, Jim knows that he is going to spend the next year in a state of anticipatory agony. He will not truly feel alive and right again until he is back on his bridge.

Jim hears the sound of one of the doors, further down the hall sliding open, and he hurriedly punches in his own key code, eager to put off introducing himself to his new neighbors until after he’s tucked all of his messy, complicated emotions back down below the surface, where they belong.

He slips through the door before it’s even fully open and punches the locking sequence into the keypad on the wall, before it’s fully shut. Then he turns and finally gets a good look at his new apartment, which is pretty much what Jim was expecting, in every way but one.

Predicatably inoffensive furniture is arranged to face a decently sized viewing screen in the living room on the left, a kitchenette with serviceable, compact tech is on the right, and a hallway that presumably lead to the bedroom and bathroom is directly across from the door.

And none of it is spared more than a cursory glance, because Jim is busy staring, open mouthed and stunned, at… well, Jim isn't really sure _what_ he's looking at. In the center of his apartment, floating a foot off the ground, about two yards away from Jim is a tall, dark haired, _semi-transparent_ … ghost.

His hand goes limp and slips away from the strap of his duffle, and the bag falls to the floor with a heavy thump.

One of the ghost’s eyebrows- which are strangely angled and rather pointy- rises slowly up his forehead until it is nearly lost under his bangs.

Jim’s brain is working double-time, trying to figure out what the hell he’s going to do without a phaser ( _Do phasers even work on ghosts? Has anyone ever thought to test that?_ ), when the ghost is suddenly right up in his space, staring at him with unwavering intensity, as if Jim’s the first person he’s ever seen.

And Jim, who is pinned between the door and a being that probably shouldn’t exist, is about two seconds away from losing his cool, when the ghost’s second eyebrow rises up to join the first and he asks, “You- you are able to see me?”

Jim jerks his head up and down in a motion that he hopes might resembles a nod.

“Fascinating.” The ghost replies, tilting his head to further study Jim.

And because it has been a long, stressful day and Jim is exhausted and sort of starting to wonder if maybe he hasn’t just snapped at last, all he can say to that is, “Who the fuck are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little nod to the new Hawkeye comics in the first part of this fic.


	2. Chapter 2

_Fifteen years_ , Spock thought, _is a very long time to go without so much as an acknowledgement of one’s existence_.

He was drifting somewhere near the ceiling of the mostly empty bedroom. At present it contained three boxes belonging to the newest tenant, and a standard issue bed, night table, and matching desk that belonged to the pre-furnished apartment. That was the thing about temporary housing; the people changed, but the furniture stayed the same. This didn’t bother Spock: his scientific curiosity in regards to the social and domestic qualities of the Human race had long since waned. At this point, people and furniture held about the same level of interest for him.

When he first woke up and found himself drifting halfway inside the living room couch in the apartment, he tried to make contact with the woman sitting next to him. It hadn’t exactly gone to plan.

After several more contact attempts had failed, Spock had been forced to face the fact that people could not see him or feel him, even when they passed right through his body. Eventually he gave up making any attempt to communicate and withdrew into himself.

There is a black hole in his memories- a yawning, undefined stretch of time that could be days or years. It starts on the day of Spock’s graduation ceremony from the Vulcan Science Academy and ends when he woke up in the strange dwelling where he now resides.

It had been a relatively quick thing for him to come to terms with the fact that he was quite likely dead- living Vulcans simply didn’t drift through furniture and were not invisible- but this mysteriously blank stretch of memory, which he had and still has absolutely no means to recover, is truly unsettling.

The confusion and horror of being a Vulcan with a less than perfectly ordered brain- lost and _dead,_ of all things, on an alien world gnaws relentlessly at Spock. To add insult to injury, Spock had become aware within minutes of his awakening that the place where he had landed was _nothing_ like the calm, logical world he had left behind. This new place was all disorder and loud emotional outbursts.

Spock had drifted and observed, learning to understand the language and the people, until he eventually grew weary of that too. It took him less than a year to become fluent in Standard, just over a year to learn that most of the people- humans- never said anything worth hearing, and only a few minutes after that to realize that if there was a hell, this surely must be it. It was then that he began actively avoiding humans.

It is easy to tell when a new tenant is about to take possession of the domicile. An efficient cleaning staff comes through and replaces all cloth objects from the apartment, before thoroughly dusting, scrubbing, and disinfecting the place. This bustle of activity has come to signify to Spock that yet another tiresome, boring, illogical human is about to arrive and that his self-imposed mission of staying as far away from the new occupant is about to begin again.

On this particular day, less than a week after the cleaning, he is floating around the apartment, indulging in what might be called meditation if he was still a living, breathing Vulcan, but is probably better described as ruminating now that he is dead, when the front door slides open and Spock realizes that for the first time since he began self-isolating, he has actually come face to face with the new tenant.

He is about to turn away and head into the bedroom, when he stops. The man has golden hair, and fierce blue eyes, eyes that are locked like tractor beams on Spock. A fission of something new– fear? Excitement, perhaps– runs through him. He raises an eyebrow.

The man with golden hair seems to lose control of his arm. The bag over his shoulder falls to the floor. And Spock thinks that somehow, the rules have changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YIKES IT'S BEEN A WHILE. Sorry guys, I still don't know if I'm gonna keep going with this story, but I found another chapter on my laptop and it seemed like a waste not to post it.


End file.
